Mother’s Day at Doña Rodríguez

for Aya

We never met, but I knew her.

By that ray of life that passed into her son,

brilliant as sky through cane fields,

casting pastel shadows on a jíbaro’s balcón,

abundant fruit and flower scented

from an ancient caribbean, full of spirit

y la vida india.

I never heard her cry, but I was there,

at the birth, when the hurricane growled,

fierce and terrible, screaming,

as she listened to its thunder within herself,

her womb stretching,

pushing out the manchild she offered the world,

not in regret, but full

of remembrances, of land-plowing farmers,

plátano covered rainforests,

asphalt paths carved in slavery

through migrant jungles and concrete mountains.

I never saw the high curve of her taíno face

with its delicate brown cheek,

or felt the caress of her motherly hands. But I knew her,

recognized in emanating points of vision

from a craftmaker’s fingertips,

in precision woven tapestries, like gifts from ancestors,

marking borderlines where families become whole.

We never spoke, or shared a conversation,

but I can still hear the music

composed in the black latino brew of her kitchen.

Smells and leftover renditions of creole beans and salsa,

of mamá-cooking ladles tapping three/two clave

from sinks to pots to laundry machines

in survival ritual symphonies.

We never exchanged a word,

yet she whispered to my soul,

the way mother teachers son to love his child,

the way father shares with daughter the meaning of abuela,

the way bonds are secured,

like a sunday afternoon banquet at the table of Orisha

where all food is nourished,

love-seasoned.

I never knew her, yet she reached out,

as sister, woman, teacher,

as mother, a gentle wind,

touching me. Becoming mine.